Protein: Does your source of protein and how you consume it matter for muscle growth?
August 1, 2025
Researchers recently looked at how the type of protein, and how it’s distributed throughout your day, can affect muscle growth. Researchers had young adults consume a vegan or omnivorous diet with either a balanced or unbalanced distribution of protein throughout the day, and then looked at muscle protein synthesis between the groups.
Who did they study?
Researchers looked at 50 young adults with an average age of 25. They provided the participants with four different types of meals. (The Beef Checkoff Program funded the study.)
The diets were designed to maintain body weight. They designed the meals to include 1.1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilo of body weight, per day. In the omnivorous diet, 70% of total protein was from beef, chicken, dairy, and pork. There was also a separate vegan diet, where 100% came from unspecified vegan sources. When it came to protein distribution throughout the day, researchers gave a balanced approach in one case that included 5 meals a day, each with 20% of daily protein intake. The unbalanced diet included three meals with 10% of daily protein coming in at meal #1, 30% at the second meal, and 60% at meal #3.
What did they find?
Researchers found there was not a noticeable difference in muscle protein synthesis between the groups!
Muscle protein synthesis (MPS) is usually determined by essential amino acids, which are needed to fuel the metabolic process. But the body also has to be able to digest them properly, so the amount of amino acids that are digestible is an important component so they are available to the skeletal muscle.
We often think of plant-based proteins to be less anabolic than animal proteins because they typically don’t contain as much essential amino acids, or don’t have ALL the essential amino acids.
The bottomline?
What researchers found in this study continues to parallel other evidence and studies that showed that there were similar muscle mass growth between omnivorous diets and vegan diets. The findings also suggest that the distribution of protein doesn’t have any meaningful difference in muslce-related outcomes.
The important part to remember? How MUCH protein you eat is WAY more important to muscle adaptation than source or when you eat it. Just make sure to hit those targets!
Read the full study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40197715/
Looking at a balanced way to make sure you’re hitting protein targets? Shop our meal plans here.
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